1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to wild animal traps, and particularly to such a trap that lures and entraps a wild animal without doing harm to the wild animal, i.e. without killing or maiming the wild animal, while restraining the wild animal pending delivery and release of the wild animal to its natural habitat.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A diligent search through commercial retail outlets where one would expect to find traps for wild animals has failed to disclose traps of the type that capture a wild animal but do not maim or kill the wild animal. Such traps as have been found include snares that are designed to choke to death the animal that is snared, or to maim it to the point that it remains defenseless against the forces of nature and disease, or lies trapped and defenseless against its own kind or other predators. Other traps are designed to kill outright any animal, even domestic animals, that have the misfortune of triggering the trap mechanism.
Accordingly, the principal object of the present invention is to provide a trap device that is effective to trap and restrain a wild animal that triggers the trap, but which does not physically injure or maim or kill the trapped animal, whether it be a wild animal such as a rat, a racoon, a possum, or squirrel, thus enabling humane disposition of the still alive wild animal back into its natural habitat.
Another object of the invention is the provision of a trap device for wild animals that will effectively lure the animals with bait of the type they are prone to seek, and which, upon taking the bait, trigger the trap device so as to dispose about the wild animal an enclosure from which they cannot escape but which does no physical harm to the entrapped animal.
A still further object of the invention is the provision of a wild animal trap that is inexpensive to manufacture, simple to implement or set, and which may be cooperatively utilized with most types of enclosures that are readily available in most households, such as cardboard boxes, wire baskets, or containers of the type distributed by many municipalities for collecting recyclable materials.
Yet another object of the invention is the convenient placement of the trap device on a flat pan, such as a cookie sheet, or other flat, preferably metallic sheet, that will cooperate with the enclosure that is dropped onto the flat pan to prevent the inadvertent escape of the trapped animal and which will facilitate picking up the entire assembly for transport to the natural habitat of the wild animal, where it may be released to reenter its natural habitat and maintain the balance of the ecosystem from whence it came.
Traps for wild animals are prone to pick up the scent of the wild animal that it comes in contact with the trap mechanism. The retention of such scent on the trap mechanism or device may prevent the approach of another wild animal to investigate and take the bait. Accordingly, another object of the invention is the provision of a wild animal trap that is conveniently fabricated from synthetic resinous material or metal and which may easily be cleaned and washed to remove a human scent or the scent of any other animal.
The invention possesses other objects and features of advantage, some of which, with the foregoing are illustrated and described in the drawings and specification that follow. It is to be understood however that the invention is not limited to the embodiment illustrated and described since it may be embodied in various forms within the scope of the appended claims.
In terms of broad inclusion, the humane wild animal trap device of the invention includes a trigger mechanism which comprises four easily assemblable elements for supporting the bait, a bottom flat sheet on which the trigger mechanism is supported when set and baited, and an enclosure the open side of which is superimposed on the flat bottom sheet and which enclosure is tilted upwardly from one end so that the elevated end rests on a selected one of the four elements that comprise the trigger mechanism and which element is released from a second element that supports the bait when a wild animal takes the bait, thus causing the elevated enclosure to fall onto the flat bottom sheet to trap the wild animal within the enclosure. The four elements of the trigger mechanism are interrelated in such a manner that two of the elements support the trigger mechanism while the other two elements are pivotally interengaged with one of the support elements and are releasably interengaged one with the other to support the tilted enclosure and the bait and to set the trap so that the enclosure falls when the bait is taken.